In order to be able to manufacture ceramic products, they have to be fired in a kiln. For importing and exporting into and from the oven, these ceramic products are advantageously supported on a device, which can be moved into the oven and removed again. In the state of the art, respective kiln carts are known, having fire resistant superstructures (kiln cart superstructures), comprising support assemblies, in which respective holders or support systems for ceramic products or the kiln run in general are formed from several supports, support carriers, like carrier beams, cross beams, large plates or similar.
According to a known embodiment, the supports are connected to the kiln cart through steel receivers. Such steel receiver comprises pairs of vertical threaded bolts, disposed on all sides, on top of each other, which are vertically and centrally aligned with the support, which is typically provided as a rectangular tube. The support is thus clamped tight on all sides and can be aligned through counteracting adjustment of the respective opposite pairs of threaded bolts.
This conventional system for fixating and adjusting the support of a kiln cart superstructure, however, has various disadvantages. Thus it is very difficult to align the support in particular in vertical direction, since hereby two respective pairs of threaded bolts have to be adjusted in a precisely counteracting manner, and all bolt pairs, thus eight bolts, have to be loosened. Thereby, it is e.g. difficult in particular to align several supports of a kiln cart superstructure with each other. Furthermore, the bolts can become loose already after few kiln cycles, since these kiln cycles cause thermal expansions in the support, in the steel receiver, and in the bolts through heating and cooling, which in turn can loosen the fixation of the support. These expansions can furthermore damage the support, which is typically made from ceramic material, e.g. Al2O3, RSiC, SiSiC, NSiC or Mullite. Furthermore, on the one hand, during the transportation of the kiln cart, on the other hand, through collisions of two kiln carts, shocks can occur at the kiln cart. Such shocks to the kiln cart are transmitted to the superstructure of the kiln cart without attenuation, and thereby to the kiln run, located thereon, in particular, to sensitive ceramic products. Not only the kiln run, but also the entire kiln cart superstructure, made from ceramic material, is sensitive with respect to such shocks, since these ceramic materials are known to be sensitive with respect to tension and/or bending loads.
Thus it is the object of the present invention to provide a device for holding and supporting, or stacking and transporting kiln run, in particular kiln run for firing ceramic products, which avoids the disadvantages of the above described state of the art. In particular, a device shall be provided, which allows a simple alignment of a support. Thereby, the device shall attenuate shocks to the kiln cart, relative to the kiln cart superstructure, and a loosening of the fixation of the support shall also be avoided over several kiln cycles. Furthermore, this device shall be simple to manufacture.